September 25, 2013 2:22 am

Doug Baldwin made a great sliding catch for a touchdown against Jacksonville. / AP photo

Good morning.

We start today with Stanford-educated Doug Baldwin. Smart guy. Solid receiver. Made a great catch last week. Not afraid of touting his crew, which he said Sunday is the “best receiving corps” in the NFL.

I wrote about him, the receivers and just how few times the Seahawks have thrown this season. That story is here.

> We talked on here about taking a look at how the Seahawks are using defensive lineman (he’s not a tackle or an end, really) Michael Bennett. Well, my pal Doug Farrar at SI.com beat me to it. Here’s his breakdown of Bennett. From Farrar:

Bennett’s been even more disruptive for his new team, ranking second to St. Louis’ Robert Quinn in PFF’s Pass-Rushing Productivity metric, and amassing 2.5 sacks, three hits, and nine hurries in three games.

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About

Gregg Bell joined The News Tribune in July 2014. Bell had been the director of writing for the University of Washington's athletic department for four years. He was the senior national sports writer in Seattle for The Associated Press from 2005-10, covering the Seahawks in their first Super Bowl season and beyond. He's also been The Sacramento Bee's beat writer on the Oakland Athletics and Raiders. The native of Steubenville, Ohio, is a 1993 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., and a 2000 graduate of the University of California, Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism.

Baldwin is right, the receiving group is underrated, (at least by the national media.)
I will take the fewest pass attempts along with one of the highest passer rating any day. And if you add Jacksons passer rating it goes even higher.

Will we still be underrated when we get Harvin back?
Houston is strong up front but weak in the secondary, i bet Wilson throws a bunch this week. I have to laugh too, Duke is right, Gannon was a true system QB.

Matt Schaub = Trent Dilfer = Alex Smith. No disrespect meant to anyone, but the point I am making is that none was ever an elite QB, but they were good enough that if they played within their system and didn’t make mistakes their teams could go a long way.

The national media is falling prey to the idea you have to have Usain Bolt on your team to stretch defenses, or your entire WR group will suck. Probably because most of those guys want to see highlight reel fodder and don’t think about the overall strategy within the game of football. Teams are obviously stacking the box against Seattle’s offense to defend the run and pressure Wilson. If the o-line can just be average, they have a chance to do real damage while backed up by a D that’s generating more the 2nd most takeaways in the league.

Yank, I have to admit, you shoot from the hip, repeatedly get hammered for your “statements”, yet, you steadfastly plow forward without even blinking. In a very odd way, I appreciate that…

Everyone is fearful of this game, and rightly so. However I personally have concluded that Pete and co. will have a PLAN. a GAME PLAN. Just like they do for every game. Im sure they have watched hours aupon hours of tape, and identified the risk areas. They will assign players to control those risk areas. Like their good running game. They will crush that part of the game and force them to alter their plan. And that is where they will fail.

I actually think Ponder will eventually “get it” I watched him play this week, and he has shown stretches of really good play… He might just be a late bloomer, an example of why they didnt use young QBs before this new age of thinking youngsters are capable.

On that point though, lots of stumbling by the youngsters, except for Wilson and lucky Luck. But RGIII, Crapperneck, EJ aren’t faring so well this year so far. Perhaps old school wisdom has a point on most young QBs, fortunately the more cerebral (sp?) of them, RW and Luck, are better at understanding the whole of the game and thereby are able to cope better.

sluggo42, very good point. I agree and my money is still on RW because our (below-average pass blocking) O-line has been going up against very good defensive Front 7 but RW has been able to make it work….

sluggo, Let me go on record as saying I’m NOT at all fearful of this game. Yesterday I said this could be anywhere from close to ugly but it’s all in favor of the Seahawks and I’m going to stick with that story.

raymaines, I liked him a lot too, 2 years ago. He’s probably lost confidence after being beaten a few times… I think Jags should go after him in the offseason but still draft a QB…. Kind of like what we did with Matt Flynn.

I’ll bet the Redskins try to deal Cousins at the end of the season to try and get one of those high draft picks back that they gave up to get RG3, but they’re not likely to get much. The next year’s draft has a lot of good QBs coming out, so that market will be flat. Their chance to deal him passed this past offseason, but they had to keep him for insurance. Too bad Seattle doesn’t play them this year.

Greg Schiano is trying to save his job in Tampa with that benching. It’s not going to work though. He’ll be the first coach fired this season. He’s lost the lockerroom and Glennon isn’t going to save this sinking ship.

I don’t think Freeman’s all that bad, but the the distrust between him and his HC is out in public. That’s not a formula for success under any scenario.

Been a lurker here for many years, and decided to try my hand at actually posting to a blog… We’ll see how it goes – go easy on me Pabs. Thought that a change of blog authorship (so long Eric… good luck) would be a good time.

Wondering, after reading the article on Nate B, if Kris Durham will get some shots this weekend? The Seahawks “next man up” philosophy apparently works for former Hawks as well!

Hey, tbaker, way to leap in! I was wondering last week seeing a nice Durham catch if he was a guy they gave up on too soon. Couldn’t stay healthy, though.

GeorgiaHawk, I was a little knocked out by the coincidence of Kam dating Easley’s daughter, too. Add Red Bryant being married to Jacob Green’s daughter, and there’s some curious connections. I think Joe Nash has a daughter …

I loved the draft pick of Kris Durham – he didn’t even get a combine invite and went in the 4th, right? Wonder if that’s the highest pick of a non-combine invitee in the contemporary draft era… anyone?

He might have stuck if he was a more effective special teams player. Obomanu beat out quite a few WR candidates with that capability…

Bummed that I’m missing out on the “Brett Favre can still play” story – quite the hard-hitting exclusive there.

“Greg Schiano is trying to save his job in Tampa with that benching. It’s not going to work though. He’ll be the first coach fired this season. He’s lost the lockerroom and Glennon isn’t going to save this sinking ship.”

You are right on.

Schiano isn’t an NFL head coach. He’s a jerk. Tampa is going to figure that out soon enough. I feel bad for them.

dirtbiker_joey, btw you are the one that said Falcons will win their division and make the playoff,, when I said Falcons were the 4th luckiest team last year and will miss the playoff in 2013,,, right?

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I in no way can stand Kaepernick, but those tweets he favorited are horrible. What is wrong with people? As an English teacher, I cringe trying to slosh my way through them. As a human being, I am appalled by the cowardice it takes to verbally attack someone over the internet. Stupid and cowardly…quite a combination of attributes

It’s waaay too early to break out your gloat dance yanker. Must have killed you to wait three whole weeks. Look at the schedule, each team plays sixteen games. Falcons, like the 49ers are not dead yet. I’d say act like you’ve been there before, but it’s obvious you never have. Please get some punctuation help.

lol, nah, I’m not gloating. I was just asking if he still feels confident about it just as he felt 3 weeks ago. Of course it could easily change and Falcons could go undefeated the rest of this season….. but I seriously doubt it.

At least you were able to add yet another Jaws and Luck comment, just as you do every day. I think somebody said it pretty well earlier in that you should easily get a job at ESPN as your profound knowledge and insight will forever change the future of the NFL….or something like that.

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